Miracle
by Collie Parkillo
Summary: Trucy Wright finally understands the Gramarye miracle. [Trucy-centric] [AA4 - AA5 verse]


Daddy likes to play peek-a-boo with Trucy, except with her, he really disappears.

Trucy runs around the room poking at the air to see where he could have gone, and of course, ever time he re-appears behind her, laughing his big laugh and patting her on the head.

"You shouldn't scare her like that, Zak." Daddy pouts at Mommy, but Trucy knows they're never really mad at each other. They're just pretending. It's a way they show they love each other-they're saying 'I could never really be angry, I love you too much.'

When Daddy leaves her alone in the trailer with the props for days upon end, Trucy likes to pretend he's just playing the disappearing game with her. She pokes the air, looking around for him. And he always comes back late at night, sometimes not in the mood for playing, but she can tell that just like he is with Mommy, he's never really angry with her.

x

Life without Mommy is empty.

Daddy won't tell her what happened. He doesn't want to play games with her anymore. He and Uncle Valant only argue in Grandpa Magnifi's room with the door locked. Sometimes she sits by the door and falls asleep there, and wakes up in her bed.

But having Daddy almost never around has its benefits. He'll never know that she opens up the crate with Mommy's props in it and puts on her big top hat and waves her baton.

"Trucy! Trucy, put that down!"

Uncle Valant rushes over, his voice softening seeing the tears forming in Trucy's eyes. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I didn't mean to yell. You just know your Daddy doesn't want you touching Thalassa's things. They're in their for a reason."

"Why? Why can't I play with them?"

"You'll understand when you're older."

So Trucy puts them down and pretends, just like Daddy, that Mommy was never there to begin with. But she still sits outside the door of Grandpa Magnifi's bedroom and listens to her father and uncle talk.

They say one word again and again. Miracle, miracle, miracle. They fight over it and Trucy closes her ears, and that night Trucy Gramarye vows to find that miracle for Daddy if it will put their family back together again.

x

Trucy is ten years old when her world turns upside down.

People run all through the courthouse, yelling Daddy's name, and the only thing keeping Trucy from bursting into tears is the nice lawyer's warm hand clutching hers. "Mr. Lawyer? Will we be able to find him?"

"I don't know." He sighs.

After hours of searching, he takes Trucy to his office and tells her she can stay with him for the night. He makes her soup and they sit on the couch together

"Do you have any idea where your father could have gone?"

Trucy chews her lip. "Maybe he went to look for the miracle."

"You mean the Gramarye Miracle?"

"He couldn't find it. He would always say my Mommy had it but he didn't."

"Your mommy? Thalassa Gramarye? You don't know anything about where she is, do you?"

"No. I'm sorry, Mr. Lawyer." She looks down. "I'm no help at all."

But that night turns into another day and that day turns into another week, and soon adoption papers are being filled out and Trucy Gramarye becomes Trucy Wright.

x

Her new Daddy is different.

Trucy occupies herself with little card tricks-silly things Uncle Valant taught her when she was small. That makes Daddy suddenly bolt up and clap his hands together. "Cards! That's how I can make money!"

Trucy doesn't really know what he means, but she plays along and sits next to him while he plays poker with angry men. It turns out Daddy is very good at cards. People snicker at him when they see him, but Trucy knows better. She knows that Daddy is brave and doesn't understand why people ask him how a lawyer could turn into a bum so quickly.

She tries to teach him magic tricks, but he doesn't really understand. "Truce, this kinda stuff might not be my thing, but I love watching you do it. You should perform sometime. It's your talent."

That gives Trucy an idea.

She draws fliers, puts them in a folder, and files an appointment to perform at a local restaurant. At the end of every performance, she gives people fliers. Wright Talent Agency.

"Daddy, look at the money I got!" She beams at him. "I performed at the Wonder Bar! I got it for you. Maybe we can have something other than that gross Burger King tonight."

Daddy looks at her, opens his mouth and then closes it again. He hugs her, and Trucy swears she can hear him crying a little.

Her bedroom may be the size of a closet, but Trucy knows her and her Daddy's hearts combined are worth more than any money she makes.

x

Apollo refuses the first time Trucy asks him to stay with her and Daddy.

"I'm looking for an apartment, see, I'll have somewhere soon enough."

But soon enough rolls around and he still doesn't have anything, and Trucy asks again. "You're Daddy's new lawyer apprentice, we've got to show you some hospitality! You've helped us out so much!"

Apollo sighs. "Oh, alright. But you have so little space, I don't want to be-"

"Not another word! You can stay as long as you want!"

Having Apollo at dinner is a little different. She and Daddy would talk about magic tricks and Daddy would tell her stories from his lawyer days when it was just him and her. But Apollo complains about how loud Daddy chews and why doesn't Trucy attend school more often and why isn't anybody doing the dishes?

"Apollo, Trucy is a businesswoman! She doesn't have the time for school all day! I've talked it over with the administration," Daddy says, between mouthfuls of chicken. "And as for the dishes, who wants to do those?! Not me! And I'm not making Trucy do that."

Apollo looks a little dumbfounded. "I'll accept the school thing. But from now on I'm going to do the dishes and I need to clean the floors because I'm allergic to dust and-" He goes on and on about how he's going to fix the apartment up, and Daddy exchanges a glance with Trucy.

"Alright. Go ahead."

The house doesn't stop smelling like soap and cleaning solution for a week, but it's a welcome change.

x

Uncle Miles is nothing like her old uncle, Uncle Valant.

Uncle Valant laughed too much, Uncle Miles laughs too little. "Make no mistake, Ms. Wright. You may call me Uncle Miles, but myself and Mr. Wright are in no way related by blood."

Trucy giggles. "Okay, Uncle Miles."

Uncle Miles and Daddy sit at the dining table for hours on end sometimes, going over papers. Daddy makes Uncle Miles laugh sometimes, and Uncle Miles gives Daddy little pop quizzes about lawyer things. Trucy doesn't think she'll ever understand the appeal of lawyer things, but it seems to make them happy.

They sit together at the table late at night, and Trucy sometimes sits by the dining room door and listens to them talk. But it's not like the way she would when her old Daddy and Grandpa Magnifi and Uncle Valant would talk. This is like listening to one of the old movies Mommy would watch when she was feeling sad.

"So? What do you think of Trucy?"

"She is…a very talented girl."

"That she is. She's the only thing keeping me going."

"Are you sure it was a good idea to adopt a child in the economic state you were in?"

"I didn't think so either, but Trucy's keeping us alive with her performances. She's incredible. I was…really down, in the last couple years. She kept me up."

"I'm very glad. I never thought you'd make a parent, though, considering how you'd drag poor Pearl Fey around."

"Oh, stop it, Miles."

They laugh and laugh and soon Trucy gets used to having Uncle Miles around.

x

Trucy finally finds the Gramarye miracle, nearly ten years after she vowed she would to make her Daddy happy.

And when she says she's found the Gramarye miracle, it's not the slip of paper in her hands that she's talking about. She's putting on a show at the first Wright Family Christmas Party, and the audience is bigger than she'd ever had at the Wonder Bar. There's Athena, Daddy's newest lawyer, Apollo, who's hardly a 'new' lawyer anymore, Athena's friend Prosecutor Blackquill, Uncle Miles, Uncle Miles' sister Auntie Franziska, Daddy's friend Maya who Trucy knows is a magician of some kind too, and of course Daddy. All watching her.

As she pulls a stuffed rabbit out of her top hat and the crowd laughs-even Auntie Franziska and Prosecutor Blackquill!-Trucy realizes that the Gramayre miracle was not a right one could buy, no matter what her slip of paper says. The Gramarye miracle was when Daddy Zak and Mommy and Uncle Valant were all together, smiling and enjoying themselves on stage. The Gramarye miracle was when magic made people laugh, and when magic made people stare at the magicians with awe.

"It's a miracle that you were able to return to law," Auntie Franziska tells Daddy later at the party.

"It was Trucy who pressed me all the time to try my best to get my license back." He laughs and Trucy blushes a little. "She's the real miracle."

Trucy Wright is the sole inheritor of the Gramarye miracle, and she used to not know what that meant, but now she thinks she understands.


End file.
